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Greetings from Heather Stern

Greetings, and welcome once again to the world of The Answer Gang, give
or take that incredible moon we have spinning round it. If you missed the
lunar
eclipse I'm sorry to hear it, the time in shadow looks only a smidge
brighter than a new moon, and the red penumbra is... well, if you're a
Peanuts fan I
suppose the Great Pumpkin really did rise over the patch this year, only a
few days off.

Far from being the "final frontier" in the space of open source,
a trip to freshmeat.net's
Astronomy topic shows
more cool apps for astronomy fans than you can spot with a telescope.
The night may be an ephemeral thing, but I say go enjoy it sometime this
month. Look outward, upward, and remember there's a reason your cellphone
works, we can get IRC in half our deserts, and ships actually get to where
they're going while carrying the trade goods of all nations.

Politics aside, it's a smaller world than we think. We could use a few more
of them, but so far, it's the only one we've got. Sharing's a good thing -
and the typical open sorceror knows this without thinking about it. I'm glad
we've a few juicy threads to share with you this month. Enjoy!